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How Google is Killing Organic Search

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Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#71

Post by akharris »

saalweachter wrote: post #17

Nit: this article is really criticizing a UI change which makes local results more prominent (in that they take over the entire page). The local results at the top of the page when you search for "Italian restaurants" are all still organic. In fact, whenever there's a map on the right-and side of the page, it's displacing ads. Now, you can be against Google ever making a UI change, or even against Google showing diff…

The issue there is that the "organic" results you're talking about that show in either the map or the carousel aren't organic at all - they're google local listings. As a restaurant, you are now incentivized to a) buy ads to get traffic from the ad units b) give google data (effectively building a whole other website) through google+/local.

You are very much being de-incentivized from investing in a page that is outside of google's universe, because you're only shot there is pure organic, which matters less and less.

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#72

Post by AJ007 »

netcan wrote: post #45
jcampbell1 wrote: post #22

The auction model for ads basically ruins internet searches in transactional categories. If you want to win at the "italian restaurant" search game, you have to bid the highest for the ad, which means you must have the highest margin. The best way to win is to open a restaurant with ridiculously high margins (over priced wine and cheap ingredients). Want the "cheapest car insurance"? Google is zero help. It sends you…

It's not quite like that. What advertisers can afford to pay is margin X conversion rate. If people search for cheap socks and you have high margin socks, your conversion rate will be lower. In super competitive markets, the conversion rate is usually what makes one win. For something like insurance quotes, that probably means the one with a known brand, supporting advertising in tv & radio, etc. The quality of the s…

I don't know about the sock market, but there are lots of categories where the arms race for user revenue-maximization has either not yet started, or everyone is using very old techniques.

A better example would be someone selling "cheap" socks but with expensive shipping. Or, aggressively upselling additional sock products in the checkout, possibly with FTC-unfriendly opt-in vs opt-out methods. Or, hammering their users with advertising after the sale by email and phone.

When a particular vertical market gets aggressive, the item being advertised usually brings little, no, or negative revenue to the advertiser, and all of the money is made on the back.

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#73

Post by anizan »

Before Google, people used to use Yahoo directory to find links.The only all encompassing directory in competition now with Google search is Wikipedia (not even its intended purpose)

People can use Yelp to find Italian restaurants in San Francisco but try typing the same in Wikipedia.

Is there any personalized search engine which lets you choose Yelp/Zagat/Tripadvisor when you type in that keyword? and maybe pull down Google map so Google doesnt feel left out ;)

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#74

Post by RivieraKid »

md224 wrote: post #47
jcampbell1 wrote: post #22

The auction model for ads basically ruins internet searches in transactional categories. If you want to win at the "italian restaurant" search game, you have to bid the highest for the ad, which means you must have the highest margin. The best way to win is to open a restaurant with ridiculously high margins (over priced wine and cheap ingredients). Want the "cheapest car insurance"? Google is zero help. It sends you…

I've been doing a lot of thinking about this topic recently, so it's nice to see a discussion on HN. AdWords ad placement is determined by a mix of quality score and bid size. It's good that they're using quality of links to influence ad ranking, but here's what troubles me: We're allowing money to influence information salience. You could say this is how the world works, and I can't deny it. Money = power = eyeballs…

I've been thinking about this too. IMHO, the only reason to advertise that is beneficial for both the consumer and the advertiser, is to provide information. Ie.: our product is objectively better than the competition for certain consumers, but the problem is, they don't know about us. So we create a ad campaign, that will be beneficial for both the consumers and our company.

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#75

Post by fuzzywalrus »

sethbannon wrote: post #4

DuckDuckGo is far less cluttered, which makes sense considering they have less things to push aside from the results: http://i.imgur.com/OnBJHkS.png

I've really tried to make a go of getting out of the google verse. I set DuckDuckGo as my default but it was interfering with my ability to work, when searching for code. I'm using Bing as my default but occasionally I still use google for searching some snippets.

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#76

Post by hnriot »

zalew wrote: post #10
andrewljohnson wrote: post #5

I'm typically a Google fanboy, but spot on. Here's a search for sushi for me: https://www.dropbox.com/s/q3epmld2ffqzg3f/Screen%20Shot%2020... It's like full circle back to Yahoo. Maybe this is a result of listening to the data too much, and not depending on the greater vision enough. Or maybe it's the future and you're gonna love it.

mine is even worse, because google apparently has trouble with me not being in the USA http://i.imgur.com/sQ5lue3.png

What did you expect it to show you? It seems like a decent result to me. Possibly google doesn't know any sushi restaurants near you in Warsaw.

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#77

Post by andrewljohnson »

sanderjd wrote: post #33
andrewljohnson wrote: post #5

I'm typically a Google fanboy, but spot on. Here's a search for sushi for me: https://www.dropbox.com/s/q3epmld2ffqzg3f/Screen%20Shot%2020... It's like full circle back to Yahoo. Maybe this is a result of listening to the data too much, and not depending on the greater vision enough. Or maybe it's the future and you're gonna love it.

Maybe I'm the weirdo, but I think that's an extremely useful results page. What are you looking for when you search for "sushi" besides (more likely) nearby sushi restaurants or (less likely) information about what sushi is. The screen real estate seems to reflect those two possibilities in what seems to me to be a sensible proportion.

It used to be, when you clicked a link on Google, you left Google to go elsewhere. Now, you search for something like sushi, then go to Google Maps, then see the phone number, then call.

I'm not _necessarily_ saying this is bad or unwanted, but it's a vast philosophical and product shift for Google. And it has implications for the trustworthiness and long-term usefulness of Google.

I do not welcome a future where Google invalidates the business models of businesses like Yelp by delivering their content in such a way that makes going to Yelp unnecessary. I don't want all of my websites to be subsumed by a corporate behemoth, so I get short term better products, but long term stifled innovation.

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#79

Post by runn1ng »

GuiA wrote: post #6
sethbannon wrote: post #4

DuckDuckGo is far less cluttered, which makes sense considering they have less things to push aside from the results: http://i.imgur.com/OnBJHkS.png

In light of "designy" things like this, and other "ideological" things that have transpired in the past few weeks, I've been forcing myself to use DuckDuckGo. It's been about a month now, and I find the results terrible . I want to love it, but the first 10 results are pretty much never what I want. Sadly, Google still performs better on this front for me. If anyone has tips to make it better, I'd be very happy to he…

Try startpage

https://startpage.com/

It's basically google, but without the tracking. (Or so they say.)

Re: How Google is Killing Organic Search

#80

Post by md224 »

notahacker wrote: post #69
md224 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about this topic recently, so it's nice to see a discussion on HN. AdWords ad placement is determined by a mix of quality score and bid size. It's good that they're using quality of links to influence ad ranking, but here's what troubles me: We're allowing money to influence information salience. You could say this is how the world works, and I can't deny it. Money = power = eyeballs…

Is there any hypothetical search model in which money doesn't influence information salience? High performers for competitive searches in organic search have usually invested heavily in SEO and/or brand-building too. Open reviews can be astroturfed and social likes can be astroturfed or incentivised. At least with "sponsored results" it's blatant, and declared. Ironically, considering the original article starts off…

I don't claim that advertising is the only vector of influence, and I realize it is possibly the least worst version (because of labeling), but that hardly seems like a reason to consider it a Good Thing.

Your argument seems to be that if we get rid of sponsored search results, this will push advertisers to invest more heavily in less visible forms of opinion manipulation. This is actually a very interesting viewpoint and possibly a valid argument, but it also feels like coercion in some way ("give us ad space or we'll reach you via less ethical methods").

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